Californians Debate Meaning of Rare Precipitation

In the middle of coping with a historic winter storm, Californians paused to debate what, exactly, they were seeing. Was that snow that was falling? Maybe hail? Or something tougher to pronounce? After seeing lightning and hearing a rumble, Danny Cullenward decided it was what he'd experienced in his Midwestern childhood. "Thundergraupel in San Francisco!" he tweeted Friday. The term takes a middle path between hail and snow, the New York Times reports. To the south, experts weighed in after people in Los Angeles couldn't quite decide what was coating the Hollywood sign.

"After a little investigating and with the help of the ALERT CA cameras, we are confident in saying snow or graupel fell on Mt. Lee (where the Hollywood sign sits)," the National Weather Service tweeted. Later, Eric Boldt of the Los Angeles office confirmed the precipitation was graupel, which he called "basically snowflakes wrapped in ice." The area doesn't get either of those often. "It was kind of bizarre," said a man who saw the sign—and his patio—covered. In places that didn't receive much snow, or whatever it was, people got in the car for a closer look, per the Los Angeles Times.

Vandi Mahoney, 25, drove from Inglewood to Kenneth Hahn State Recreational Park for the rare chance to see snowy Los Angeles Mountains. Under a sunny blue sky and white clouds, she saw mountains fully covered. "I thought: oh my God, this beautiful," she said. "Usually you can see far away a little hint of snow but this is, wow." Darshan Gooch, a Santa Cruz surfer, said he laughed out loud when driving by Twin Lakes State Beach, then pulled over to take the snowfall in. "It didn't stick," he said, "but just to see it was beautiful." (More California stories.)